Read Ebook: How to Listen to Music 7th ed. Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art by Krehbiel Henry Edward

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1443 lines and 65765 words, and 29 pages

The Ocean Wireless Boys of the Iceberg Patrol

But Jack's gloomy mood did not last long. As usual, the stimulus of work soon caused the clouds to dissolve, and by the time he had the detector adjusted, he was humming cheerfully. As he looked up from his completed job, a ruddy-faced, cheery-looking lad about two years older than Jack, who was eighteen, stuck his head in at the door of the wireless-room which, besides the apparatus, contained Jack's bunk, a picture of the boy's dead mother hanging at its head, and the desk at which he made out his reports.

"Hello there," hailed Jack, as Billy Raynor appeared, "going off watch?"

"Well, don't I look it, with this fine old coat of grime on my hide?" laughed Jack's chum, now promoted to the post of second engineer on the new freighter.

"Thought when you got to be second you were just going to loll around with your hands in your pockets and give orders," commented Jack.

"Um, so did I," rejoined Raynor with a rather wry grin, "but, as you see, it didn't just work out that way. By-the-way, I thought you were going to be the dandy, brass-buttoned wireless hero on a passenger packet this trip."

"Old Jukes was mighty nice about it though," he explained. "I'm getting the same pay as I would on a liner and then, too, that check for that South American business came in mighty handy, so that, financially, I'm not kicking. But I do want to get ahead in my work."

"Say, shut up, will you!" sputtered Jack, turning red. "I don't want any favoritism for anything I may or may not have done. That isn't it. I just want to get right ahead in the wireless game."

"And so you are, so far as I can see," replied Raynor. "Incidentally, how's the portable set coming along?"

He referred to Jack's pet hobby, an invention over which he had worked during all his spare time, afloat and ashore, for months. It was a portable wireless set in which weight and complexity had been cut to the bone. Jack had managed to reduce the weight by degrees till at last he had produced what he believed would prove a practicable device for use in the field, which weighed a trifle under fifty pounds, and could be carried over the operator's shoulder in a satchel.

In reply to young Raynor's question, Jack opened a closet and produced a set of instruments of exquisite finish. Attached to them was a neat coil of copper wire and, strapped to the base that supported the whole, was a flat package of cloth and bamboo sticks.

"What's that jigger underneath?" asked Raynor, referring to the latter bit of apparatus.

"That's a box kite," explained Jack.

"A box kite? What in the world do you want with that?"

"Well, you can't send out or receive messages without a?rials, can you?" parried Jack.

"All right, Mr. Smarty, but just suppose that you are in a country where there are no trees."

"Oh, I see," exclaimed Raynor, "in that case you'd do a little kite flying."

"That's the idea exactly," responded Jack.

"Have you tested it yet?" inquired Raynor.

"Up to 150 miles. It works splendidly. I'm going to gear up my hand-generator higher so as to produce a stronger alternating current, however. Then I think I'll get better results."

Clang-g-g-g-g-g-g-g!

"Something doing?" asked Raynor, as Jack sprang from the chair he had been sitting on and seated himself in front of the wireless key.

But a moment later the expression of the young operator's face grew concentrated. His hand reached out for a pencil and he began to scribble on his transcription pad the words that came pulsing against his ears like waves out of a vast sea of space.

"Well, that's to be expected in April," was his comment. "I guess we'll get a lot more of such reports before long."

"Think we'll run into any bergs?" asked Raynor rather anxiously.

"Don't get nervous," laughed Jack, "the iceberg patrol is on the lookout for those. I'm surprised they haven't 'tapped-in' yet with some information. That's the service for you, old man, the iceberg patrol. Think of the lives you have a chance to save and--and--but I've got to be off with this message to the old man."

Jack hurried from the cabin, and forwarded his message to Captain Briggs on the bridge. Raynor followed with more deliberation and made for his own cabin and soap and water. As he removed the grime of the engine-room, he mused on the subject of icebergs. Not many weeks before a big liner had blundered at night into a huge floating continent of ice and had sunk, with a terrible toll of lives and suffering.

Had the young engineer possessed the gift of second sight, he would have been able to foresee that in the immediate future he was destined to come into closer contact with icebergs than he would have dreamed possible, and also that the entire current of his life was to be changed by a series of unlooked for and astonishing happenings.

When Jack opened his cabin to go below to his evening meal, a slight flurry of snow struck him in the face.

"Goodness!" thought the boy, "here's a change, and when we left New York folks were thinking about Coney Island and putting their winter coats in moth-balls."

The captain was the only other occupant of the dining-room, from which opened the officer's cabins, when Jack went below. The boy noticed that Captain Briggs' face was rather flushed, and his eyes were very bright as he took his seat. The captain had finished eating but before he left the room he came to Jack's side and, leaning over him, asked in a rather thick voice, if there had been any more reports on icebergs. Jack replied in the negative.

"Tha's aw' ri' then," said the captain in a loud, boastful voice, whose tones were thick. "Donner be 'fraid icebergs with Cap'n Briggs on board. I'm an old sea-going walrus, I am. I jes go ri' through 'em, yes, sir, jes like knife goin' thro' cheese. Thas me."

He swaggered out of the cabin with his scarlet face grinning. Jack's eyes followed him as the captain rather staggeringly ascended the companionway.

"I don't know much about such things," thought the boy, while a serious look came over his face, "but it seems to me that Captain Briggs is under the influence of liquor. That's a bad thing. Liquor is bad at all times but it's more dangerous at sea than anywhere else."

"Confound you fellows," he flashed through space, "why don't you pay attention and get the message from the jump?"

"I was eating supper," Jack replied contritely.

"I haven't had a chance to eat yet, and I'm so hungry I could gobble a boiler-plate pie," growled the government man. "This is a dog's life."

"I'd trade you jobs," flashed Jack, but the other ignored this and began thundering out his message concerning the white terrors of the north.

"Ready?" he flashed.

"Fire away!" sparked crackingly from Jack's key. Far above him, in the night, the a?rials flashed and snapped.

"April 7th, 2:00 a. m., big berg, lat. 42.34, long. 48.15. Growler four miles north-west. Both moving south."

"That's all. Now I'll get a chance to stow some grub--maybe," grumpily concluded the report. Jack did not jot down these latter words.

As he made his way forward with his report, the young wireless man noticed that the fog was beginning to rise from the sea in long, wavering wreaths. They looked ghostlike under the stars. In the light breeze they danced a sort of witches' dance. It looked as if the sea was a boiling expanse with whirling banners of steam rising from it. Even as Jack hurried forward he saw that the banners were closing in to form a solid web of mist.

Above the young operator hung the spiderweb strands of the antenne. Practiced operator as he was, Jack had never quite lost his wonder at the often recurring thought that from those slender copper cables, seemingly inert, he could, by the pressure and release of a key, send out a message, in time of danger, that would bring a score of ships hastening to the stricken one. It was characteristic of the boy that close acquaintance with the wireless had not in the least dimmed his enthusiasm and reverence for its marvels.

On the bridge were three figures, shrouded in heavy coats. They were the captain, chief officer, and second officer. From one end of the bridge a seaman was constantly casting overboard a canvas bucket attached to a rope and hauling it in board again. Each time he brought the bucket to the group of officers, one of whom thrust a thermometer into it and then read off the temperature of the water.

"Dropped ten degrees, by Neptune!" Captain Briggs exclaimed thickly as Jack came up. He had just finished scrutinizing the thermometer under the light of a hooded lantern.

"Ten degrees, sir!" cried Mr. Mulliner, the first officer.

"That's what. We ought to smell ice before long," was the reply, with a loud, hilarious laugh.

"It's too bad. The captain has certainly been drinking," mused Jack to himself as he stood at attention and presented the dispatch he had just copied.

"What's this?" demanded the captain, regarding him with bloodshot eyes that blinked suspiciously.

He took the message and scanned it under the light of the lantern by which he had been taking thermometer readings. His hand shook and he called first officer Mulliner to read the message to him. Mulliner repeated it in a grave voice.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet